Is Reality Setting in at BlackBerry?

In case you hadn’t noticed, shares of BlackBerry Ltd. (NASDAQ: BBRY) have been on fire of late. The stock price is well above the old $9 buyout, and the stock was up a whopping 40% so far in 2014 to Thursday’s closing price of $10.45.

Now it appears as though some reality is setting in. The question is whether reality is merely a bump in the road.

CEO John Chen is making a huge difference. His efforts are taking the company away from raw production costs and designs. BlackBerry’s workforce is being sized appropriately. And now Chen even wants BlackBerry to do a sale-leaseback on its buildings and to sell unused or undeveloped space. A new Pentagon deal even got investors excited.

Citron Research recently came out and said that the negative metrics had changed. In fact, they even called for the stock to rise to $15 or more. Then a blog post from a writer who disclosed up front that he was long BlackBerry shares published this last Monday said that BlackBerry may be worth $17.

Again, it seems simply no more than that a bit of reality is setting in. Profit taking after a 40% run in just 15 trading sessions is only normal.

BlackBerry shares were trading down some 4.8% at $9.94 in early Friday trading, after closing at $10.45 on Thursday. Keep in mind that BlackBerry’s 52-week trading range is $5.44 to $18.24.